Rich celebrates 90!!
As I sit on our deck overlooking the waters of Eastsound on Orcas Island this morning, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for so many blessings. Last summer my step-granddaughter Jenny, my husband Rich’s oldest grandchild (one of seven), gave me a gratitude journal, which I used diligently for the past year. I found my spirits lifted by this nearly daily discipline. I learned to appreciate small things in my life: people, animals, family and friends, beautiful and stormy days, our beach here on Orcas and the mountains we see from our house in Union. I saw how with gratitude I continually managed to pay all the bills each month. I complained less and appreciated more.
September 20 was a big celebration day as Rich turned 90. Becca urged me to host a party. “This is a big deal,” she told me. Rich balked, but he often does that with parties and then raves about them afterward, so we decided to go ahead and made our plans months in advance. We scheduled a sit-down dinner at Alderbrook Hotel and Spa, a beautiful resort about ten minutes from us in Union. Fifteen people attended including friends, neighbors, relatives. Rich’s son and wife Kristen Donovan and his daughter Michelle even flew in for a few days from St. Louis. My daughter Mindy drove up from Portland and Becca from Yelm. Our “adopted” children, Marty Preston and Michael Deer came in from Olympia and Seattle. Traffic was in a big snarl that evening but the hostesses helping us assured me not to give up and after waiting three hours for a ferry our long-time friends from Edmonds, Jon and Marcy Edwards appeared just in time for the main course. My cousins Kay and Dale arrived from Tacoma and our special neighbor Deborah, who is nearly the age of Rich, arrived when we did.
Before dinner, I asked everyone to go around and tell something about Rich, what he meant in their lives, or an incident, something special he has brought to their lives. Many spoke of his calm stability, something I have also valued in our lives together. Many of the young people praised him for helping them with math. His son Mike recalled his dad being at his track meets to encourage him. Years later Mike would be honored as an outstanding track coach.
We hosted four at our house that evening, some sleeping on couches, and three stayed at the hotel. As a mom, I always feel happy when my young ones are safe at our house with us! Saturday Michelle helped Rich make waffles for all of us and most of our children spent the day with us, often stopping to sit on our newly reconstructed deck overlooking Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains.
I have included some photos here and a special poem I wrote for Rich (see below).
I often remember how our counselor told me to expect Rich might die at any minute when I married him in 1988! He’d had one heart surgery by then and no one expected he would live to be 90! More gratitude!
We also ask special prayers for Becca who is facing new changes in her life and for my poetry teacher, Sterling Warner, whose wife is in the hospital.
I WILL REMEMBER by Susan Glenn Lampe
Before your 90th birthday in September, I will browse my stack of mind memories,
So that when we go and we all must—
I will know which to cling to as handles of comfort.
First, I will visualize the sparkle in your pale green eyes,
The spark that dances out from your heart through your eyes
To say without words but with BIG letters “I LOVE YOU!”
I WILL REMEMBER THAT SPARK.
I think about how you held my hand during the last piece of a chamber music concert
When I slipped it into your great soft paws,
You cupped and surrounded and caressed my smaller hand
As if this was the dearest thing you could ever hold.
I WILL REMEMBER YOUR TOUCH.
I will remember the chickens you raised
On our small family farm, an experiment we city folk tried in a quest to be sovereign and self-
sufficient.
Our dog Surprise, a Malamute Shepherd helped you move the chicks to a horse trough
She carried them in her mouth, never hurting even one.
I WILL REMEMBER OUR TIME ON OUR SMALL FAMILY FARM.
I will remember you as Captain of our sailboat, Le Saint Louis
The Beneteau 35 S5 made in France personally for you
That boat was white and sleek with a three-tiered mast and room to dangle our feet off the back
ledge,
You kept us safe in the waters of Lake Ontario and then Puget Sound
Your courage never failed in the wildest of winds, the wickedest of heavy seas
I WILL REMEMBER SAILING WITH YOU, fourteen years.
My favorite memory will certainly be the last moments of every day when we cuddle in bed
Age has nudged us into a deeper love, more intimate than sex.
Each night I ask you to share the best of your day and you always answer,
“I almost forgot. Have I told you today that I love you?”
When it is time for one or both of us to continue on, I WILL REMEMBER all these things.
